MUSIC: PLAYLIST

MUSIC: PLAYLIST; Jimmy Buffett Allows Himself to Be Upstaged

By JON PARELES

Published: August 1, 2004

'POR VIDA' -- The songs of the Texas songwriter Alejandro Escovedo stare down death and loss with a handful of chords, stoic despair and barely a glimmer of self-pity. ''Por Vida'' (''Or Music'') is a two-CD tribute album and a fund-raiser for Mr. Escovedo, who has hepatitis C and is unable to tour. It gathers luminaries of alt-country and roots-rock, among them Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, Calexico, Howe Gelb, the Cowboy Junkies, Charlie Sexton, Son Volt and Jon Langford and Sally Timms of the Mekons; Mr. Escovedo himself has the finale, singing ''I just might break this time'' over a swaggering two-chord vamp. And nearly everyone involved does justice to his rock-ribbed songs, with their mixture of dark revelation and down-home twang.

JIMMY BUFFETT -- The fine art of upstaging thrives on Jimmy Buffett's ''License to Chill'' (RCA). His finely calculated album full of other people's songs features guest country hitmakers and is produced with Nashville sleekness. In wry or wistful songs about growing more rueful with every passing year, Mr. Buffett's voice is followed and trumped by stronger, more stylized singers. But in the end he sounds even more like the easygoing guy he claims to represent.

JAOJOBY -- Leave it to physicists to figure out just how salegy, the musical style from Madagascar that the band Jaojoby plays on ''Malagasy'' (World Village), sounds like it's accelerating while it stays at one brisk tempo. The beat is 6/8, which is constantly redivided as guitars and keyboards chatter back and forth behind Eusebe Jaojoby's robust voice; the groove is light, springy and as close as music gets to pure joy.

TAKING BACK SUNDAY -- ''It's love, it's love, it's love -- make it hurt,'' Taking Back Sunday demands in good emo fashion on its new album, ''Where You Want to Be'' (Victory). Song after ringing song whiplashes between recrimination and self-criticism as the guitars elevate whines to anthems and make squabbles sound like triumphs.

DAMIEN RICE -- People who first heard Damien Rice's songs of romantic yearning and disaster in concert were likely to find his 2003 album, ''O,'' fairly pallid, since it only presented his quiet -- not to say wimpy -- side. His language gets cruder and his arrangements more turbulent on the EP ''B-Sides'' (Vector), particularly in the blunt ''Woman Like a Man'' and the vertiginous ''Moody Mooday.'' But he still owes his fans a recording of what happens onstage, when his dynamics and distortion pedal transform songs into volatile epics of introspection.

EEK-A-MOUSE -- While the producers of dancehall and ragga radicalize the world's rhythm tracks, more old-fashioned reggae still has a few tricks left, especially with Eek-A-Mouse at the microphone. His mixture of singing, chanting, grunting and nasal, off-the-wall scat-singing sends his vocals ricocheting around the best tracks on ''Eek-A-Speeka'' (Greensleeves). Romance stumbles into a sonic house of mirrors in ''I'll Be Waiting'' and ''Pretty So,'' while echoes, comedy and paranoia mingle in ''Every Posse (Fly Down)'' and ''Mean Dreams.''

BADLY DRAWN BOY -- It's becoming clearer with every album and every overlong concert set that Damon Gough, or Badly Drawn Boy, can't tell a good song from a bad one or a cliché from an insight. His new album, ''One Plus One Is One'' (Astralwerks/EMI), is typically hit or miss, but when he's not trying to be John Lennon, he comes up with modest but telling songs about love and mortality like ''Easy Love'' and ''Fewer Words'' and goofy mini-suites like ''Take the Glory'' and ''Holy Grail.''

MIS-TEEQ -- From this side of the Atlantic, the English dance music called garage has always seemed to be playing catch-up with the terse computerized productions and glossy vocals of mainstream American R & B. But the gap is shrinking. Mis-Teeq's American debut album, ''Mis-Teeq'' (Reprise), culls songs from two British albums to come across like Destiny's Child without the jittery doubletime rhythms and TLC without the personality contrasts. While superficiality reigns, Mis-Teeq is slick and ingenious, especially in its brisk kiss-off songs.

SISTER GERTRUDE MORGAN -- Dressed in a nurse's uniform, Sister Gertrude Morgan used to wander through the French Quarter of New Orleans, shaking a tambourine and singing gospel songs that she sometimes made up on the spot; she also painted in a self-taught style that has made her a folk-art heroine since her death in 1980. ''Let's Make a Record'' (Preservation Hall) was recorded in 1970, with just Morgan, her raw voice and her tambourine in the studio. Her songs hold bits of old gospel tunes, but mostly they are chants that bear down on a few words -- ''Power, Lord, power!'' -- and accelerate until they become unstoppable incantations; sometimes she lets herself get carried into preaching. The connections to Africa, and to New Orleans' Mardi Gras Indian chants, are strong, and her fervor is stronger.